Radiological protection

The Information System on Occupational Exposures (ISOE) is a unique worldwide programme to review, promote and co-ordinate international co-operative undertakings for the radiological protection of workers at nuclear power plants. It also serves as a forum for discussing occupational exposure management issues and is the repository for the world's largest database on occupational exposure from nuclear power plants.

The ISOE Steering Group recently conducted an in-depth evaluation of the goals of the Information System. The goals of this evaluation were, inter alia, to: clearly define the ISOE's objectives; analyse ISOE participants' needs and define targets; and identify ways to enhance the ISOE's use and visibility. The evaluation's findings will be implemented during 2004. More information is available at: www.oecd-nea.org/jointproj/isoe.html.

Radioactive waste management

The Forum on Stakeholder Confidence (FSC) held its fourth interactive workshop in Brussels, Belgium on 18-21 November 2003. The Belgian workshop considered stakeholder issues in the context of local partnerships for the long-term management of low-level, short-lived radioactive waste. More information is available at: www.oecd-nea.org/general/mnb/2003/03-11-rwm.html.

Nuclear science

Participants in the Joint Evaluated Fission and Fusion File (JEFF) project on nuclear data evaluation, processing and benchmarking met in Paris, France on 17-19 November 2003. New evaluation work has been performed for Fe-58, I-127, I-129, W-184, and for Pb, Bi and Ti isotopes. A new recommendation for delayed neutron data was also produced. The JEFF-3.0 activation library in ENDF-6 format is available on request from Ali Nouri (ali.nouri@oecd.org). Recently the JEFF project benchmarking activities have focused on the under-prediction of reactivity for light water reactor lattices. This subject is currently under discussion in an NEA electronic forum at www.oecd-nea.org/lists/ueval.html.

The Seventh International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety was held in Tokai-mura, Japan on 20-24 October 2003. Most papers presented at the conference focused on describing experimental data, evaluating experimental programs and applying the results to code validation. Research into criticality excursion analysis (revisiting past accidents, modelling experimental programmes) has increased in many countries. This is almost certainly in response to the 1999 Tokai-mura criticality accident. There is also substantial work being done on code development issues, particularly with Monte Carlo methods. The other topics covered during the conference included the application of general criticality safety methodologies to process facilities, burn-up credit and nuclear data.

Data Bank

Thermochemical Database (TDB) project

The fifth volume in the NEA chemical thermodynamics series, Update on the Chemical Thermodynamics of Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium and Technetium, has just been released. The new volume both updates and expands the thermodynamic data on inorganic compounds and complexes of uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium and technetium covered in previous volumes. A team of seven internationally recognised experts spent five years critically reviewing all the scientific literature containing chemical thermodynamic information for the above-mentioned systems that have appeared since the publication of the earlier volumes. The results of these critical reviews, carried out in accordance with the TDB project guidelines, have been documented in the new volume. The fifth volume also contains new tables of selected values for formation and reaction thermodynamic properties and an extensive bibliography. This review will be a valuable reference source for those working on nuclear waste management and the nuclear fuel cycle. Forthcoming reviews will cover selenium, nickel, zirconium and organic ligands. More information is available at: www.oecd-nea.org/dbtdb/.

Instructions on retrieving material from the NEA may be found at www.oecd-nea.org. Please note that scientific database access is only available to residents of OECD/NEA Data Bank member countries.

The monthly bulletin only lists new and updated material. It is distributed by e-mail to registered users of the Nuclear Energy Agency's Online Services. Registration is free; please use this link. An online archive of previous editions is available here.